A Children’s Lit/YA Lit Reading Challenge

Over the past couple of days, I have been discussing the shortcomings of my childhood and early adolescent fiction reading with Dunja, the talented and lovely squirrel mistress who devised the Squirrelpunk cover art for my April Fool’s Day. She has decided that even in my advanced (albeit not yet decrepit) age that I need to rectify this gap in my reading with the following books that I must make an effort to read and possibly review, preferably over the next two weeks (I guess she, like others, want me to resume reviewing again after a few months’ hiatus). Not all of these are in English, but most are:

Emilio Salgari, Sandokan alla Riscossa; Il Corsaro Nero

Scott O’Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins

Henryk Sienkiewicz, In Desert and Wilderness

Astrid Lindgren, The Brothers Lionheart (which I did read at her urging a few years before, but didn’t review); Pippi Longstocking

Rudyard Kipling, Kim; Captains Courageous

Karl May, Winnetou

Branko Ćopić, Ježeva Kućica

Cesare Pavese, Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi

Not certain if the last two are juvenile/YA, but they shall be read…just as I must follow She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.

In return, I sent her this list:

Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Ferns Grow; The Summer of the Monkeys

Beverly Cleary, The Mouse and the Motorcycle (or just anything by Beverly Cleary; she was/is awesome)

Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (although it was duller when I re-read it a few years ago)

E.B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan/Charlotte’s Web (the cartoon made me cry when I was 5)

Anything by Dr. Seuss

Jack London, The Call of the Wild

Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Robert Lewis Stevenson, Treasure Island

Johann Wyss, Swiss Family Robinson

A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Thomas Rockwell, How to Eat Fried Worms

This should be an interesting project. And yes, I have no qualms about reading/reviewing juvenile/YA literature, or at least the ones that do not suck.